


Temple Heart

by GlassRain



Category: Lady of the Shard (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Multiple Personalities, Post-Canon, Worldbuilding, Worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 04:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12999687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassRain/pseuds/GlassRain
Summary: Snapshots of a new world where everything is changing -- including the theology.





	Temple Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eida/gifts).



> This is FULL of spoilers. Anyone who hasn't read [Lady of the Shard](https://gigidigi.itch.io/lady) yet, go do it before you scroll any further.
> 
> Thank you Eida for giving me an opportunity to write this!

After the first explosive decade or so on the new Home Star, people adjust to the fact that you can easily visit other cultures without all the fuss of traveling across the galaxy. It stops being a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you have to grab immediately, and starts being a mundane fact of life, a thing you're always planning to get around to eventually. They're already well into a generation of children who won't remember the universe being any other way.

So while in those first years the High Priestess visits everywhere, advising worshippers in every temple and leaving tokens at every shrine, it takes her a while to get around to doing another round. Besides, she's immortal now, right? There's no rush.

Well, apparently, in the time she was away, one of the temples has switched over to worshipping _her_.

It's a beautiful stone complex on the side of a mountain, built over a clear running spring. This part of the world used to be a Flowing Star. Now its people call it the Flowing Country, and make regular visits to their temple to learn the wisdom of the Priestess. Her heroism. Her enthusiasm. Her most holy and sacred waffle recipes.

When the Priestess visits, she gets bombarded with requests for feedback on pancake faces. Two of the abbesses seem on the verge of a schism over what kind of topping makes the cutest bear nose. A handful of acolytes present her with a buttery approximation of her own face, forehead garnished with a sparkling shard of rock candy.

The echo of the last Phoenix in her head is furious. "The Burning Star already found out what a mistake it was to abandon the Radiant One! Didn't anyone else bother learning from us? It hasn't even been that long!"

(Technically it's been _longer_ , but that's not the important thing here.)

The Priestess smiles at everyone and swallows her distress. Along with as much pancake as her stomach can handle.

 

* * *

 

The Radiant Goddess used to stretch out her mind and search the universe, laborious, and slow, when she closed her eyes and focused. The All-Goddess can flip through all of existence at the drop of a hat. It's one of many things that come much more easily to her these days.

The whole thing sometimes feels unnecessary now that there's no omnipotent enemy to watch out for, but humanity does still need protecting from itself.

When a priest returns from a pilgrimage full of misguided fire about how everyone in the Spring Country has been failing to follow High-Priestess-endorsed growing practices, he finds that the Goddess has spent the past week strolling through local fields, praising how well the people understand local conditions and asking to take some of their blossoms as a gift.

When the council of the Golden Country is voting whether to raise prices on their exported crops to take advantage of a famine on the next continent, the Goddess appears in their meeting chamber: ten feet tall, crowned with jewel-fragments and flowers, her hair reaching the floor in great waves that sparkle like the night sky.

When a temple of hers was first rededicated to the Priestess, the Goddess . . . did nothing. She still has more than enough worshippers to get by, and it's not as if the Priestess doesn't deserve her own share. Because the Goddess never reads her Priestess's mind -- it's a private deal she has with herself -- she doesn't realize this could be a source of angst until the Priestess returns from the Flowing Country and has a minor freakout in her arms.

 

* * *

 

"So -- you didn't scold any of them to stop doing it?" asks the All-Goddess later, cuddling the Priestess in their private rooms in the temple in the Home Star's heart.

"Well n-no," stammers the Priestess. "I just remembered . . . how it felt, back before all of this started, when you said I should stop cooking for you . . . I was afraid anything I said would come out like that."

"Then are you sure you _wanted_ them to stop? I certainly didn't."

"That was different! You really were a goddess! Well, sort of. Well, not really, but we took the idea and ran with it, and you were asleep, so it's not like you were around to correct us the way I am now. Besides -- you were as good as a goddess! You saved the whole universe! And I . . . well, um."

She's talking to the Radiant One, which is still who the Goddess is, more or less. It's not like Her Radiance was any less herself for being buoyed by the power of the Old God back in the day. The only change is that the Old God's heart is within her too, and it's mostly asleep, basking in the warmth.

"Anyway, you're a goddess _now_ ," finishes the Priestess, nodding firmly. "It's a whole other thing."

A dryly unimpressed look comes into the Goddess's eyes. She leaves off stroking the Priestess's fluffy swirl of unbound curls, the better to poke her in the nose. "You know what your problem is. You think your job is to be cheerleader for _me_ , and if anyone likes you too much, it means you're doing it wrong."

Okay, _that's_ the Old God. (The Priestess can always tell.) "S-so you don't think it's a problem?"

"Look, if folks start murdering each other for using a flavor of syrup they think you won't like, then go ahead and step in. But if not? Let them like you."

 

* * *

 

When an overzealous worshipper of the High Priestess tries to vandalize one of the Goddess' shrines in the Shining Country, the Goddess considers handcuffing him to the gate and writing I DON'T RESPECT HER INCALESCENCE'S LOVE FOR THE RADIANT ONE across his chest with his own can of spray-paint.

Then she considers that this is probably the Old God seeping through, and brings the Priestess there in person to give him a stern talking-to.

It's very likely he would have preferred the spray-paint.

And when the first acolyte is sentenced to extra shifts of hard labor for "inappropriate thoughts toward Her Incalescence," well, this one they make plans for. Both the Goddess and the Priestess manifest at the temple -- this one in the Burning Country, so the Priestess wears her full Phoenix robes -- ready to make a grand declaration that no one should be punished for being in love. Even if, this time, it's destined to be unrequited . . .

"Of course I know your relationship is perfect and fulfilling and no one could ever come between you!" exclaims the acolyte. "As I explored in detail in my 80,000-word fanfiction novel, _Her Incalescence's Kiss_. Which the abbess is totally mad about, even though she couldn't have seen it without clicking _past_ the adult-content warnings."

The Priestess and the Goddess look at each other.

"Um -- no one should be punished for that either," decides the Priestess, though she's so embarrassed that the grass around her feet bursts into a row of tiny flames. "That's all! We can go now!"

 

* * *

 

"What's this 'Her Incalescence' business, anyway?" the Priestess asks afterward.

"Some of them have been calling you that for a while now," says the Goddess. "Hadn't you heard?"

"Um . . . no. Is it good?"

The Goddess strokes the line of her cheek, and watches a blush rise in the divine hand's wake. "It suits you."


End file.
